Transforming the Narrative Making Space for Disabled and Minority Authors in Literature
Tracy Stewart explores the challenges of amplifying unheard voices, dismantling barriers in publishing, and championing authentic stories from underrepresented communities, particularly those with disabilities, to ignite genuine inclusion and belongi
Foreign.Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuaryfor bold conversations that spark change. I'm Joanne Lockwood,your guide on this journey of exploration into the heart ofinclusion, belonging and societal transformation.Ever wondered what it truly takes to create a world? Remember, everyonenot only belongs, but thrives. You're not alone.Join me as we uncover the unseen, challengethe status quo and share stories that resonatedeep within. Ready to dive in? Whether you'resipping your morning coffee or winding down after a long day, let'sconnect, reflect and inspire action together.Don't forget, you can be part of the conversation too. Reach outto jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.ukto share your insights or to join me on the show.So adjust your earbuds and settle in. It's time toignite the spark of inclusion with Inclusion Bites.And today is episode 172with the title Telling Untold Stories.And I have the absolute honour and privilege to welcome Tracy Stewart.Tracy is a book coach, editor and founder of
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Freshly Press, who is dedicated to amplifying untoldstories and advocating for diverse voices in publishing.When I asked Tracy to describe her superpower, she said it ischampioning unheard voices and guiding storytellers to sharetheir truth. Hello, Tracy. Welcome to the show.
Tracy Stewartguest
Thanks for having me. Delighted to have the opportunity to chat with you ina bit more detail than we normally have the opportunity to do on LinkedIn.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Yes. Yeah, I think we bumped into each other probably four or five months ago,didn't we? And we've been talking abouta book. I've got a budding book. I've got podcast poetry, so.
Tracy Stewartguest
Looking forward to seeing that come to life.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Yeah, well, you will be featured probably in volume two, so. Yeah, I'm lookingforward to that as well. So whereabouts in the country are you right now?
Tracy Stewartguest
Well, I'm actually in France because although I'm British, I live in France.Yeah. Live in Normandy.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Wow. Still got the same daylight out the window, so I would havenever known, so.
Tracy Stewartguest
No, I know.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
I think you're probably the first guest in the 172 episodes that hasactually been based in France. Wow.
Tracy Stewartguest
There you go. Always upload somewhere.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Yeah. So, Tracy, one of the reasons we started talking originallywas, you know, we talk about this, guiding storytellers totell their truth. And I think for the first moment we had a conversation, youtalked about the publishing industry as a whole, the lack of diversity that'sthere, and the usual suspects. Get in if you like.Yeah.So how. What. What started this? What ignited your passion to helpuntold authors, if you like untold people, tell their stories.I guess about 10 years ago I, which iswhen I moved over to France, I'd stopped working, doing my old job inthe city. That was a very traditional career. And I had theopportunity to go and work with a small publishing house, independentpublishing house, remotely supporting authors. Fromthat I ended up building a business which I started with two otherwomen. And we were really wanting tofocus on giving authors who never usually had theopportunity to get their books in front of large audiencesto be able to get publishing opportunities or to promote theirbooks better, differently, all of those things. And it reallystemmed from the fact that the books we were looking at and publishingoriginally were, were all largely you know, traditional, middleclass, white, you know, not, not terriblyreflective of society and certainly not telling stories thatwe were experiencing in everyday life and needed to be told,needed to be amplified. So that was really the cause was, was lookingat, you know, I've been a book buyer all my life, but looking at itfrom the other perspective made me realise just how many storieseffectively don't make the cut with publishers because they're oftennot brave enough to take on stories that are different. Ipresume there's also the imposter syndrome of many people wouldhave me an author. No, really, no one's going tobe interested in what I have to say. So you must find that thebarrier there is one, getting someone to actually have their storyand want to do something with it and secondly, getting someone who's prepared.Prepared to publish that.
Tracy Stewartguest
Yeah. And there are several steps in between and after.Very often imposter syndrome is a huge barrier. Peoplewanting to write, they want to, they know they've got a good story, they wantto be able to get it out into the world, but they, you know, theygo through that. Who am I to tell my story? Or they might start towrite it and then not know where to go with it. Because allbooks have a certain flow, we might not realise it, butas humans we like to have stories told in certain,you know, in certain flows, in certain ways, you know, to reach peaks andtroughs at different times. And so when, when you're an inexperiencedwriter, when you're trying to get your story down, it's very difficult to knowwhat that pathway is initially. But equallythen being able to have the confidence to approachagents or to approach publishers. How do you go about doingthat? How do you learn how to do that? I mean, there were lots offree resources on the Internet, but Sometimes they offer conflicting advice.So there are lots of differentbarriers really for people being able to get in and oftenfor people with disabilities, for example, which issomething I'm really passionate about, they actually don'thave proper access to be able to usecomputers in the same way as you or I may be able to do it.People may have issues with blindness, with colours, withdyslexia, people may have issues of not being able to use their handseasily to type or write. And all of those things present barriersas well. So there are difficulties and challenges to be faced,not just in the idea of writing or having theconfidence to write, but also in the physicality of gettingsomething written as well.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
It's also a cost barrier, isn't it? Because it's todo it properly. I don't know what properly means, butthere's sub editing, editing, design, marketing,all those various aspects aren't freebecause people have to earn a living doing this. So that can also be abarrier to people maybe with non traditional backgrounds, maybe don't have the financialresources or wealth to embark on this process.
Tracy Stewartguest
Yeah, absolutely. Whilst now you canmuch more easily publish, self publish, using, youknow, the usual suspects at Amazon off the digital,there are lots of different platforms now and ways in which you can self publish.If you self publish something that hasn't had the right attentionbeforehand, as you rightly point out, you know, the editing process,the COVID the fact that the layout is done correctly, all of thosethings, then actually when you present that to market, althoughit costs you nothing to put it onto Amazon,you're actually providing a product that is not fit forpurpose, it's not fit for market and in some ways isn't respectful ofthe reader, the buying public. So yeah, the cost isdefinitely an issue as well because everybody in the chain,and I'll call it a chain because it is, everybody in that chain has toearn a living somehow. And ultimately the writer wants toearn an income, if not a living from the books thatthey're writing. You know, there's, there's, you know, if you take, there'sone, one big gold coin and that act, that gold coin has to besplit in so many different ways before ultimately, as apublished author, you can get the royalties in the end. So it's not aneasy process to navigate.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
I also, I'm just thinking about my ownauthorial, authorial, if that's a word, ambitions. I'm kind of apragmatist because I know many people who've published books or even IKnow people who publish tens of books and some of them have achieved what wecall bestselling author, genuine Sunday Times. Someone who isincredibly a bestselling author rather than a screenshot of anAmazon page on day three after their launch. It's not easy tobecome celebrated authority.
Tracy Stewartguest
It's not, it's not at all. And for various reasons, you know, there's ahuge number of books now in the market. It's, it's quite a saturatedspace. While self publishing has given an opportunityfor many people to get their work out,it means that there is so many more options forbuyers in terms of what they, they can read. And if you don't have abig marketing budget or if you, you don't have the opportunity tobe picked up by national newspaper or, you know, aRichard Book club or whatever it may be,actually getting recognition is incredibly difficult.Incredibly difficult. I think a lot of it comesback down to why you're wanting to write. Some peoplegenuinely just want to write to get their story out there, to share theirexperience. It's about knowing who your targetaudience really is. Because you can't be everything to everybody. And reallyfinding your niche and finding people who are going to begenuinely interested in your story is an important aspect.Because if you can nurture, you know, a communityof people who are wanting to hear yourstory and who are able then to talk to others about your story,you know, that helps the process. It definitelyisn't easy. And we've all done it, haven't we? We've all bought books on, youknow, Waterstones, Amazon looked at something. Do we go back and reviewit very often not. Because, you know, inherently we're often quitelazy about doing things like that. And one thing that readers reallycan do to support authors is to review a book they've written. Becauseunfortunately, the algorithm on social media on,on all the big platforms, big publishing platforms, they only workon the basis of somebody having a reviewor having a, you know, a rating against their book.So one of the things I always try and encourage anyone who reads a bookto do is actually go in and take the trouble to enjoy it and reviewit.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
And as you're thinking now, I'm thinking because my publishingambition is kind of very vocational, very around what I do, what I talkabout. So it's more a businessoutcome or associated with business. But there'salso, I guess there's people who are having their voice heard, whoare novelists, who are science fiction writers, who are maybe evencomic writers or whatever.
Tracy Stewartguest
It May be, yeah. And this is one of the things thatis a huge challenge for the industry, but a hugefrustration for writers is that particularly those withdisabilities are probably the ones that are leftbehind in the culture of publishers and agents tryingto bring wider representation and diversity inpublishing. Lgbtq, thewriters of colour, they have tended to have moreopportunity. They still don't have enough, but they had moreopportunity than writers who have disabilities. Oneof the clients I've worked with have seen several years. Shehas been writing fiction and poetry practicallyall her life. You know, she's received awards for it. She'swon a Hemingway prize and was included inthe Hemingway anthology. And yet hernovels, because they include disabledprotagonists, are not being picked up. But you're getting lots ofcomments back about the quote, quality of the writing,how wonderful and interesting the storylines are.But we have yet to find a publisherbrave enough to take on a story with a disabled characteras the principal character in the book. Andit is a challenge, a real challenge formany writers and across all different types ofdisability and all different types of,you know, challenges that people face. The industry largely,and there's been quite a lot of research done into this in the last fewyears, the industry largely is speaking to and publishingfor, you know, a white middle class audience.And the industry is making decisions aboutwhat it sees as being commercial and itdoesn't feel yet when it's not brave enoughin very many instances to try something a bit different. Andthen we've been through this process with writers of colour, withwriters of LGBTQ literature.It took so long to start to get those stories out thereand there's still a long way to go for sure.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
So we talked about, I asked you earlier about the costs and you talkedabout the big gold coin and everyone's got to try and earn a living outof this. No one's doing it for free. So when you're about here is publishersare reluctant to take the risk is where they would maybetake, assume some of that cost, financial cost of the editing process, thepublishing process and take that burden off of the authorrather than expect them to have to fund all that themselves and take the risk.It's a bit like venture capitalists. We know that many female founders, manypeople with disabilities, aren't getting the investment for venture capitalRaft and the publisher to be our venture capitalinvesting in our book. And that's what you're saying the challenges peopleperceive there to be a market isn't that strikes me as there's a bit ofchicken and egg. There is no market, therefore we can't. Butbecause we can't, there is no market. And it's kind of, we need to breakthrough that.
Tracy Stewartguest
And that's a really good analogy about the publishers being the venturecapitalists for authors, for sure. And the thing is,I genuinely believe that there is a market, you know, that people,if you look, if you, if you read in newspapers, inmagazines or if you look at what people are watching on tv,people are really interested in storiesthat bring a different perspective to life, thatsomething that is different from our own lived experience.And they want to know these stories, they're interestedin these stories. But unless thereis some way in which a publishersees that they've almost got a ready made audience,they're very unwilling to take on books thatare different. I mean they're even unwilling, if you lookat it in this perspective, they're unwilling to take books which arevery, very well written crime novels for example, that arein a, you know, written by a normalperson like me, you know, who comes along, just, you know, has a good ideafor a story, writes a story and sends it off. They,they get so many of those types ofsolicitations. They, they don't, you know, they take on a very, verysmall percentage. And so often, you know, we go off and we selfpublish. But there's a, even for books where there's a market, thereis not enough capacity or courage withinpublishing houses now to take on someone who doesn'thave an established following. Very rare.So as an author, particularly as an authorwith a form of disability or from anunderrepresented part of the community,they've also got to work on building their audiencebefore they even get to the stage of presenting their workto an agent or publisher. Because they wantagents, publishers, they all want some formof, you know, partial guarantee if you like, that there arepeople out there already wanting to buy this book. And that's adifficulty, that's a challenge.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Yeah, I've, I've spoken to, I suppose you would call thembook coaches, which not, not too dissimilar to yourself. And I've beenquoted between 10 and 20,000 fordepending on how light touch, you know, guidedtoward, you know, how much I want them involved in the process. Andthat's just to get the book to a publisher, not actually do the publishing andthen do the marketing and the branding and all that kind of stuff. So it'sprobably, I don't know, I'm just guessing off the top of my head. Let's picka number. 30,000 pound to get from A to B.And it each book doesn't make that much money, does it? There's not a hugeamount of money in books.
Tracy Stewartguest
No, there's not. You know, there isn't. There really isn't a huge amount of moneyin books. There are ways in which you can earn a living,but it's very rare that it's purely from the books you'vewritten. You know, you tend to have as a writer, you often have a sortof portfolio career. So you'll do some commercial writing. You might bejournalists part, you know, you might also be content writingor copywriting in those types ofsituations. So it's very rare that someone earns solely fromthe books that they've written. It can happen, you know, if a seriesgets auctioned and gets put to market through Netflix orApple TV or something like that. But purely from writing abook. No, it's a challenge. And this is whereone of the things that I always look to do with freshly press was finda way to be affordable. Because nobody Iknow, you know, has 30 grand sitting in their back pocket to usethat, you know, picked out the air sum to to even get a bookready to go to an agent or publisher.It's just not practical. Yeah. And there are other ways that, that youcan support people to help them write. Memberships, there arewriting hours or writing groups. There are lots of differentways in which you can help. But ultimately to package a book,to get it to market, whether that's to self publish or toput it to an agent or an independent publisher,there is a certain amount of polishing that has to be done at the endto make it viable. And publishers also are,they don't have the wherewithal that they used to have to do a lot ofthe editing. You know, the big publishing houses, if you're one of theirbigger authors, then they'll have an editor and you know, it'lllook something like we all thought the traditional model ofpublishing does and should look like. But there are anawful lot of people who, even if they publish with PenguinRandom House, you know, they have that little logo on the side of theirbook. But what they don't have is a huge lot of supportaround that book, particularly once it's published, becausemarketing budgets are really small.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Yeah, it's the best route to self publishand then hope that gives you a kind of a cv.If you like to go to a publishing house with is it better to doone yourself. Or is it better to say let's not come out early,let's go straight for publishing house because if I come out badlythen I'm going to be judged on that first piece of work. What's the guidance?
Tracy Stewartguest
I really wish there was a right answer, but honestly thereisn't one size or one route that fits all becauseauthors have lots of different needs. I mean, some of the authors I work with,you know, are from a neurodivergent background.And so the prospect of actually self publishing andhaving to deal with inquiries, witharranging all the interviews, with reaching out topodcasters or book reviewers, you know, it's just not something thatthey're able to do. It's an incredibly stressful,potentially stressful situation for them to find themselves in and they don't wantto be connected necessarily contacted directly by people.So for them an agent is often,you know, a much more appropriate route and a route that gives thema lot less stress. But it costs more togo down that route and it takes longer. I mean the thing with self publishingis it's super fast as you can literally get your bookup and within, within a week you, you, you're rolling. Someauthors do get picked up from self publishingbecause one of the things that some of the bigger publishing houses and other agentsdo now is that they're looking to see what's coming up, what's selling inthe self published charts and then they're approaching,they're approaching authors from that direction, which is something that wouldnever have happened a few years back. So
Tracy Stewartguest
I think there are positives, absolutely there are positives from going downthe self publishing route and there are some authors that have never doneanything but self published and are multi millionsellers. But what they've done is they've been very smart and verysavvy about the way that they've self published. Sothere isn't a right or a wrong route. I'm a firm believerthat you choose the route that is right for theauthor because not authors operate andhave the same skill sets. I've got some wonderfulauthors that I work with who are well aged,I think we'll say, and they're vintage, vintageskills. They're vintage, absolutely. And they writecracking books. But their skills in dealing with all the minutiaeof self publishing and you know, marketing side of things,that's not their bag. They just want to write. So for themgoing down a straight self publishing route would, would be a challenge if theydidn't have someone to Support them along that line. So it'smulti layered. It's multi layered. And also alot of the things, you know, using. Using platforms toself publish is often not accessible towriters with disabilities because thelogistics themselves, you know, lining everything upand making sure that the book is uploaded in the right way and then itgoes off and you have all these different boxes to tick. You know,somebody with visual impairments is not going to be able to managethat. And someone who finds it difficult to work keyboard orhold a pen finds that very difficult as well.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Yeah, you're talking about. It's really hard as a. As aminority person, if you come from a minority background, to get published. Youmentioned specifically people with disability. We are seeing goodrepresentation of black queer authors because they have their owncommunities. I guess it resonates with. As you're talking about that, I was thinkingabout just looking at everyday television, BBC, Netflix, whatever it is,and you see many black led TVseries, documentaries, films, whatever it may be. Again, queer stuff.As you're talking, I'm thinking. I'm just trying to think where the seriesis centred around a person with a disability, such as a wheelchairuser, such as an amputee or whatever it may be. There's sort ofrepresentation in programmes like SilentWitness with Liz Clark. Yeah, Liz Clark. Andthe newer series we're going back in Time, show My Age. Ironsidewas a detective who was a wheelchair user. But wedon't see strong TV representation, whichpresumably that helps. What's the opposite of fuel? Extinguishdemand. Because we're not seeing those lived experiences being. I hate the wordnormalised, but becoming everyday every day.Visual associations.
Tracy Stewartguest
We shouldn't. We shouldn't see these books or these TVseries or films as being something special. They shouldbe just part and parcel ofeveryone's experience, because they are. It's aconversation and I think. Was the guest you had lastweek Charlie. Charlie Hunt, Charlie Hart.Yeah, yeah. And she was talking about the fact that, you know, havinglabels, you know, being ADHD or beingautistic and having high functioning, there are all the differentvariables of that, you know, make it oftenso that people are being pigeonholed rather than beingmade, you know, to just be accepted for who and whatthey are, you know, members of civilization, humanrace and society. And it's a similarsituation with allunderrepresented communities. They're oftenseen as token or they havea strong role and they havestrong lines, they have a strong presence, but they aresomehow depicted and seen asbeing you know, not the norm andyou know, they are the norm, they're normal. In the same way I'm as normal.There is, there shouldn't be a distinction betweenthe type of character driven stories that we see,read and listen to.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
There's also a. I perceive there to be ahierarchy of privilege again even withinmany communities. I mean, just, I was thinking about disability, the disabled community,for example. There's. We see a lot of representation in the mediaof Paralympians. People have been in Invictus Games andagain, there's a privilege there. If you've suffered a lifechanging injury due to warfare, whatever that may be,then your lived experience about the recovery from that.There's a lot more money in supporting you around prosthetics,rehabilitation, giving you a voice than there is for someone who was maybeborn, born without a limb or born with acerebral palsy or whatever that may be, that they will no longerhave access to that amplification and privilege and funding. So again, we dosee a lot of representation, especially around Paralympics, Victor'sGames, celebrity appearances on telly. There's a real disconnect betweentheir acquired disability at that point in life andsomeone who has maybe been born with theirdisability. And yeah, the differential experience. AndI guess I want to see real lived experiencetold through their eyes, their lens, their perception, nota, I don't know, a sort of sanitised version. I want to see the rawness.You know, there's a storyline onEastEnders which I saw the other night, which mirrors the stripsearch of a young black girl. And this is about a young Asiangirl being strip searched by the police. And Iwant to hear those stories in the mainstream media to say this isn't good enough,it happened in real life, now let's dramatise it and let's bakethat into history so it never happens again. And I want to hear the injusticesof my friends or wheelchair users struggling with theirday to day life and having that told to story.
Tracy Stewartguest
Yeah. And yeah, you're absolutely right about the fact thatpeople who have been born withconditions, and often multiple conditionsor you know, have multiple conditions develop later in theirlife, they struggle to get heardin, in every sense of the word. So not even justthrough writing, but you know, through access to work,through the ability to have the appropriate careto enable them to work. Writers I've worked withstruggle to receive an appropriate level ofsupport to do not just the basic things. I mean, Ithink there are many, many stories and experiences that peoplehave Shared about the fact that, you know, they find it incredibly difficult tofind a Tube station access or to have somebodysupport them with driving, getting them from A to B tojust to be able to work. There are very often people who.And authors who require support and helpto help them to write. And that isseen as a luxury. You know, it doesn't even comeclose to being something that is considered to be important.And yet if you're a writer, to not have access to. Toeither the right software to enable you toproperly dictate, for example, or to havethe appropriate access to screens that enableyou to see a screen clearly and beable to navigate that screen, really, so have the right physical equipment for,be that headsets or the right type of mouse or keyboard touse. For writers, it is incredibly,incredibly hard to have those types ofthings seen as being necessary to work.So very often you've got authors and writers whohave extraordinary storytelling skills andcan provide wonderful articles and contributionsto news publications, to magazines, to anthologies, the.To also write their own memoir or novel. Theyjust are not heard and they're not seen asbeing somebody who has a need. And, you know,when you're a writer, you're very often driven. Writing is thething that supports your mental health. Writing is the thingthat, you know is what you are here to do. And doing it in allits forms is important. But it's virtually impossiblefor many writers who have disabilities particularly,to even get started on that ladder.So it's creating barriers for access to work, forbeing able to access markets and be able to writetheir books and talk to agents and talk to publishers,have speaking engagement, because there's a whole raft of things thatjust. You don't enable them to be on that stage andbe in that world.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Is that because people don't takebeing an author as a serious career option?It's. It's almost like a hobby, a bolt on. It's not. It's likepeople say, I want to leave school, I want to become an actor. It's like,can't you get a real job? You know, I want to. I want to bea sports person. Can't you get a real job? You got to. You got towork on that first. So people aren't vet fe.There's not enough people earning a living being purely an author. You said it earlier.It's a bolt on.
Tracy Stewartguest
Yeah.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
So getting support and getting funding for it as ahobby must be hard because it's. I guess it's a hobby untilit becomes a Profession, I. It's a hobby until you actually make some money outof it.
Tracy Stewartguest
Or you can, because you can't make money as awriter in all of its forms. You know, book writing, copywriting,writing articles, being a journalist. If you don't have access tothe right tools, you cannot make money. Andif they're saying you've got to make money before they'll give you access, thenyou're absolutely between a rock and a hard place. I mean, there are someorganisations which do provide support, butoften the forms and the processesthat authors have to go through to even get somebody to look at theircase are, you know, they're making it not possible to evenget to that stage. It is ahugely frustrating situation formany people to find themselves in. Hugely,hugely difficult.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
We originally started talking months back and around my ownbook, the podcast Poetry, and unashamedlyare leading with the fact that it's helped or wholly developedby AI. So I'm taking the podcast that you're listening to now,feeding it through some AI technology with my own scripts and my owncustomization to create poetry from that episode andhelp me generate some of the other parts of the book, the notesaround the episode and everything else. WithAI becoming ubiquitous, becoming everydayon people's phones in their pocket. Once you have something in your pocket on yourphone, it, it becomes the norm. Our kids today are going throughschool with AI, and I've been at conferences over the lastfew weeks and there's a real emphasis now on how business canleverage AI. It's going from horse and cart to the petrol vehicle,from log tables to slide rules to calculators. We're in that kind ofquantum acceleration now. This is going to changethe world of copywriting. Marketing people are nowcompeting with technology. So how canthe writing industry, wherever aspect, author, copywriter,sub editor, editor, how can you embrace the reality ofthe future?
Tracy Stewartguest
It's again, one of those questions where there's so many facets to theanswer. It can be incredibly helpful. It can makethings happen faster, it can produce ideas, it can help youstructure a piece in a more, you know, more logicalmanner. There are lots of different ways in which AI can supportdoing your job better, but one of the things that I think pretty muchis universal is that you still need a humanto actually review and put humanityback into the work. So you know to what extent you do it. If youput something in and you, you, you put one of the prompts in that says,you know, please write me a piece that I can send through to aneditor as for a submission for a newspaper article on X, Y, Z,it'll come back with something that it doesn't havesoul, you know, because ultimately they're, they're,they're processing words, they're processing algorithms, they'reprocessing, you know, information. Butthere is no sense to it, there's no real emotionbehind it. And you can tell by the rhythm of the sentencesthat, you know, it's absolutely written to follow rules,it's not written to follow natural speech patterns and things like that. I
Tracy Stewartguest
genuinely do not think that AIcertainly in the short to medium term can replace a lot of the work wedo. But the challenge is that there are organisationslike Meta currently who are usingpublished work that has copyright in the frontof the book to feed into their AIsystems and train AI to become morehuman. Because it's picking up patterns of speech that arean essential part to any novel, for example, that'swritten. And this is one of the things that we're facing at the moment inthe Society of Authors and the Good Law Project are all looking atways in which you can do that. Because all of these books have been publishedwith the copyright completely heldin the appropriate words and format and stillthese are being fed into AI to train AI. So,you know, there are certain things that I use AI for tohelp me in my day to day work, but Iabsolutely cannot stand behind a system that supportseffectively ceiling work that others have done to train AIto do that. So I may or maynot have answered your question that you, you fundamentally asked. But I thinkthat there are, there are lots of different aspects to it and actually, youknow, there are things that AI can helpdisabled authors do.Dictation is a form of AI, you know, andthat's something that's incredibly enabling. Youknow, that doesn't give systems the right to tape workand it doesn't give us the right to presentAI fully. AI generated work as something thatis, you know, is not. You know, you're very openwith the web that you're talking about with your book, that youhave used AI to, to help you generate andexplore themes from the episodes. And, you know, you'vebeen 100% open about that. But there areunfortunately people who are also producing work which is100% AI generated and has had next to no input from ahuman. And they're not necessarily being badged as being thingsthat are AI generated and so they can beproduced in two hours, whereas writing a bookcan take months and Months, if not years and years. Soit's creating imbalance as well in terms of the abilityfor people to produce work and content.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Yeah, I use AI a fair bit in some of mywriting. It's good for a wireframe, it's good for sortof key bullets and headings. It's gotme, helped me and coached me into structuring, because I writea lot of articles into HR type magazines, so it helps me structure thosesometimes. You know, most of these magazines have their own editorialguidelines. They want it to have key takeaways, they want it to havepick out key quotes which they can highlight in the article. Sometimes you write, youget the article and then say, can you just generate me three punchy takeaways fromthis at the bottom?
Tracy Stewartguest
Yeah.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
And can you pick out a couple of quotes in it, or can you highlightdiscreetly certain words and certain paragraphs to give it emphasis? And it'll goboom and give you a few bolds, a few italics here and there. So sometimesit's really great to sort of augment your creativity.
Tracy Stewartguest
Exactly. But it's not there to replace creativity.And fundamentally it can't. Because when, as a human, when we read something asAI generated, you know, by and large, youknow, because it's not following those rhythms of speech orit's got, you know, it's too correct in the waythat it's written. And then we see that we can't necessarily alwaysname what we're feeling, but it's a sensation because it's somethingthat is so embedded in human culture. Storytelling hasa rhythm. Storytelling has a soul. Storytellinghas a way of touching us when we readit. And we don't know the why and how of all of that,but what we do is sense it.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
It's interesting. I picked up on the word you said there, soul. AndI've used that word before around AI. And, you know, youthink about some famous Android TV characters, youknow, Commander Data, people like that, that they, they lackedhumanity, they lacked humour, they lacked a soul. And thatwas what, in Star Trek, Data always wanted. He wanted to be able to laugh.You wanted to better understand a joke or find the irony of somethingrather than an algorithm telling him that it was funny.So, yeah, and I, I, I'm the same that I've done a lot of judgingon award ceremonies and, and categories and things.And the last couple years, I've noticed that you read it and go, there'sno soul in this. There's no, there's no umph. There's no humanity. It's justfacts or. Or information that's been put out there, I think.Where's that? The umph.
Tracy Stewartguest
This is where. When, you know, when we've got so manyunderrepresented communities and voices that aremissing from bookshelves, in bookshops and libraries and from onlineplatforms, there is avoid that needs filling to enrich life,to enrich our experience of how others haveexperience life. These. These stories, they.They touch. They really do touch you. Youknow, I use the word soul a lot because I genuinely believe, you know, thatwe. We are. When we're reading something, we are looking for connection.And that connection doesn't have to be something thatwe know we can be touched and connected with something we had noidea about, no experience. Experience of. And that's the powerfor me, that's the power of being able to get more of these untoldstories out into the world, is to enrich all of ourlives.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Yeah. And I was talking to you earlier about myfather's eulogy, which I delivered at his funeral a few weeks ago,and I took his eulogy and blended it with a poem by afamous poet who often is quoted ineulogies, Mary Elizabeth Fry. I took his eulogy and askedAI to blend it with his poem, and it came up with something really beautiful,completely relevant to my father. But a lot of that, if you read it, Idon't upsell my own ability here, butdelivering it, something that's written by AI,you can put that emphasis, you can put the soul into the wordsthrough the way you deliver, the pace, the tone, the modality of what you'redoing. Whereas if it's written on paper, author wordsare going to work harder when they're written than when they're told, haven't they?
Tracy Stewartguest
Yeah, very much so. Very much so. And this is where I think, particularlywith fiction, you know, being ableto read fiction that's written by a person of colouror by someone in the LGBTQ communityor by someone with a disability. There is no onethat has a better authority to write that in amanner that is relatable andencourages that curiosity to know more thansomeone whose lived experience that is, having someonewho is not gay write a gaycharacter will not deliver the same result. I mean, you can usesensibility readers, and this applies to all of theunderrepresented communities. You can use sensibilityreaders, sensitivity readers, but at the end of the day,there's a nuance when we write. There's a cadence,there's a turn. Of phrase, call it what you will, butunless you've lived that experience, you can actually noteasily tell that story. And, you know, that's anotherchallenge that people from all underrepresented communitiesfaces, that very often, you know, their situation has beenappropriated by someone who does not have that lived experience. Andthat in itself is a. Is another challenge because, you know, you seebig publishers picking up books that, you know, doactually have a disabled character as a. As aprotagonist, but it's not written by someone who has a disability,you know, and, you know, is that right? Is that wrong? You know, evenwith someone having read it for sensitive activity, why not publishsomeone who has had that experience and who can givemuch more depth to that story?
Joanne Lockwoodhost
I've got. I mentioned earlier, I've got a couple of friends whohave physical disabilities and I see stories in the news about horrorstory about a wheelchair user who was stuck on a train because there wasnobody available at the platform to lower the ramp to help them off. People tryingto navigate London, the bus stops without a drop curb or they can'tget up and down the curb, or the people on the bus won't let themoff, they tut and get angry when they're trying to move theirwheelchair or there's a push chair in the disabled space. There's all these storiesand we've all heard these, we've all seen them, but I travelledacross London with my friend who has cerebral palsy in a poweredwheelchair, on and off of buses, up and downkerbs, across the town intounderground stations, having to navigate Victoria tube station witha wheelchair user, going into a pub, going into the conference room.And I didn't. Obviously I don't have theirlived experience, but I was able to have their experience by proxybecause I was right next to them during this journey. And all thestories I see now have a relevance to my avatar of her,if you like, knowing that experience. So Iexperience her story through her eyes in real time. Ithink just hearing it in the news, it never lands that same way. You haveto have that powerful story. I think that's what you're saying there.
Tracy Stewartguest
Yeah, very much so, yeah. We. Even if weexperience that alongside somebody, we're still not living it in theirskin, you know, which is, for me, something that's hugely important,is that, you know, these stories are told by the people who live themand we can, as you say, live them by proxy to some degree, but it'sstill. It's still far from what it's like to live. And when we're livingit by proxy, often it's. It's. It's for a short amount of time,you know, and they are experiencing discrimination orthey're experiencing, you know, difficulty, as you say, even something assimple as going up and down a curb or getting in a. Going on thetube. They're experiencing that day in, day out, year on yearon year. And we can't imaginewhat that's like. We can be more sensibleand more sensitive to it, but we can't truly understandwhat that means. And so to be able to have a truerepresentation of what that is, I think, is hugely important.Hugely important, yeah.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Because I think we talk about putting the soul into theconversation to the story that AI can't do.I actually put the soul into the story of their story by being withthem. Because they could tell me about this problem, they could tell me aboutwhat happened to them last night, they could tell me this, that and the other.But what difference was, I could feel, and I think that's theword, feel their anger, feel their frustration,feel their disappointment, how upset they were,how uncaring that situation was throughtheir eyes. So I was able to, as a human, feel fromthem. And even when they tell me the story of another incident,I haven't got that osmosis of feeling from them, have I?
Tracy Stewartguest
No, no, exactly. Andthere's no way we ever can. But the best chance we've gotof really understanding somebody else's experienceor, you know, seeing. And I think this is one of the things that, youknow, kind of. We often look at this as in anegative sense, but actually, you know, the stories thatI've read and the novels that are being written that are just not gettingpublished, you know, these are celebrating the factthat, you know, people are who they are,that they are gay, they are someoneof colour, they have a disability. But that's actually not thepoint of the story. It's. It's how these characters aredeveloped and how these characters go through life and howthey interact and, you know, the experiences that they. They haveputting them comes back, I think, to one of the things we talked aboutearly on, about this sort of, you know, normalisation, ifyou will, and I don't actually like the word normalisation, but actually makingthese part of everyday life. So, you know, if you're picking a crime novel upoff the shelf or if you're picking a love story off ofthe shelf, it actually doesn't matter,you know, if the person is disabled or if the personis transgender, or if the person is of an indigenouspopulation, it's that experience throughtheir eyes and. And their situation, andthere's just not enough of that out there.It was interesting because the other day, and I think Ispoke about this when I had a chat with Marie,you can look in some of the big bookstores and they'll havea set of bookshelves which are labelled up and badgedLBGPQ plus, you know, and they have it. It's kind oflike, whoa, look at us. You know, we've got a bookshelf,you know, that's not integrating, that is notproperly accepting, that's making itstand out and be different. And it's not. You know,you could. Yes, it makes it easier to find, but also it meansthat you lose a whole draught of audience becausethere are a lot of people who won't naturally gravitate to. Lookin that little corner section where there are two books totwo bookcases filled with LGBTQ fiction.How. How do you do it? You integrate it. You make itmore the norm. You make it that you can look through aselection and you just. You pick out the author and the storyline. You're notgoing there solely for something that's written in that manner. Thereisn't a right or wrong answer. Because equally, there have been so many years wherethere were no books published at all that actually represented certaincommunities. You know, that. That it's important that we are able tosee that there are now. But, you know, getting that balance right, I think it'skind of swung quite a long way the. The other way, now that it'ssort of being trumpeted as being. This is. This is us beinginclusive, this is us being diverse. And it's like,yeah, you can do it without the trumpet.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Yeah, I know exactly what you're saying there. Because, you know, often you go towatch a film, watch a. A Netflix, whatever you got to watch,and it's written in such a way, the directors cutit in such a way that the plot is going to have aromantic encounter between two of the characters. And it's notexplicit, it's not part of the major storyline. It's just human interaction.There's going to be a bit of flirting and there's going to be a glanceat some point, isn't it? There's something going to go on here and you'rekind of drawn into the romantic. Will there be a bit of jumping into bedlater? Or there'd be a bit of romance later. And it's really powerfulwhen that is not a traditional heterosexual couple having that moment. You go,does she look at her? Yay. So it's gonna, oh, I'm looking. And youget drawn into it. And it's not the big purpose of thestory, it's that incidental storyline on the side from aqueer lens. And you don't want that to be on a queer shelf, you wantit to be on the mainstream shelf. It just so happens the relationship that'sevolved is not a heterosexual based relationship or atransgender relationship. So. And I think it was an episodeof one of these Korean Alice in Borderlands. I think it was one of theseKorean type shows.And halfway through the second series there was this fight sceneand everyone said, wow, go girl. Wow, you'reamazing. He said, that's my transgender superpower for you. It's like, well,of course she's transgender. It didn't matter. It was just suddenly itbecame a superpower that made her a great kickboxer. Halfway through the filmit was like, so that subtlediscovery doesn't have to centre the character on that. Nopart of it. And I think Star Trek had asame sex couple, two men were having a relationship on there,but in the same way that another character flirted with anothercharacter. It was just how it just again, go back to that word normalise.We shouldn't be normalising it just didn't draw attention to it.
Tracy Stewartguest
No, exactly, exactly. You know, and I thinkthat's across all genres, to be honest, ofwriting. It's. It's just important toalmost, I think back to some avatar and you've got theseblue human or non human, whatever, you know, however youinterpret it, you know, and we're able to accept that,you know, without thinking twice. And yet ifthere's a film which is, is based around,you know, you say a full blown queerrelationship or is focused around acharacter with, with disability, then often they'lllook at it and they'll, you know, it's like, oh, I feel a bit uncomfortablewith that. I mean, you, you going back to the point youmade about the, you know, when someone has lost their leg, perhapsthrough war, through, you know, disease or illness. And I think about the characterin Strike, RobertGalbraith's storyline and you know, thathow that is portrayed is something that, you know,it became an important part of the storyline.You know, for some people it made them feel uncomfortable,you know, and it was interesting how it was portrayed in the,in the series when, you know, there were often occasions where theprosthesis would be on show in some way, shape orformal, or.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
It took it off once, didn't he? Or put it back on or something.
Tracy Stewartguest
Yeah, back on. And, you know, you look at and you think, you know.And I remember distinctly, you know, somebody talking about itafterwards and saying, oh, well, you know, I don't. Don't think that was really necessary.And it's like, well, hold on a second. You know, thisis someone's life. They weren't making it. I mean, he didn't have all ofthe rah, rah, rah stuff that we were talking about with, you know, withthings that surround Paralympians. And, you know, andabsolutely they should be celebrated, but there's a muchbigger, broader community of people who are impactedbecause of disability or because they are different in some way, shape or form,perceived to be. They're not getting the support they're not getting. Their voicesaren't getting heard. And that's something that needs to change. Imean, it's changed a little, but it's definitely not changed enoughand not by any way, shape or form.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
So if you're listening to this podcast right now, I mean, let meask a question on behalf of a listener. Howcan someone who feels that they've got a story, whether that's fiction,nonfiction, business, whatever it may be, but they've got a story to tell,how should they go about it, A, overcome their imposter syndrome,B, where do they start? And C, where do they head?
Tracy Stewartguest
Overcoming imposter syndrome is sadly something that if you're awriter, you pretty much have to learn to live with, you know, becauseit comes in waves. You know, you'll write something brilliant one day and you'll writesomething the following day that you. You look at and you think, why do Ieven think I can write? And it's sort of having that toolboxof being able to work through it, to writethrough it. You know, I always say when you. When someone's writing the firstdraught of anything, you know, we call it the shitty firstdraught, because that's what it is, you know, or it'sa. It's a vomit draught. I mean, you can call it whatever you like, butessentially the first time when you're writing is just youtelling yourself a story. You know, it truly is just youtelling yourself a story because there's so much of ourexperiences, of our ideas, you know, and it doesn't matter, actually whether it'smemoir, fiction, or whether it's a business book, what you'retrying to do is you're trying to get everything that's in your head downonto the page about that particular subject. And itwon't come out in the right order. It's impossible for it to come out inthe right order because some ideas are just more bullish than others. You know,they'll. They'll be the ones that come to the fore. But you just. Iwould say, just. Just keep writing. Just write. You know, you don't have to shareit with anyone at this point, but until you've got out allyour thoughts and you've got your ideas and things willspark, you know, you'll. You'll write something down and the next day you'll suddenly think,I hadn't thought about it like that. So the next day you write something thatyou hadn't anticipated writing at all. Justwrite. Just get that as much as you can out of your head.And what that does is it opens up space in the brain to thenlook at what you've written andform it in a way that it can't when it's just all stuck in yourhead. So we always say, if you think you've got a story to write,the very best thing you can do is actually get it down on paper. Whetherthat's, you know, dictating it using asoftware programme or whether it's writing by hand.Just get. Get it out. Get it out of your head and onto the page.Once you've got something onto the page, you'll look at it and by and largeyou'll go, no clue what to do with it. Now, you know,no. You may even feel that it looksall right, but actually, you know, when you. When you look at it and youread it, you know, you know, it's not necessarily coher or it's got plotholes. If it's a piece of fiction, and at that pointyou can, you know, if you're. If you're part of a little writinggroup, you can ask someone to take a read of it if you wantto have somebody professionally take a look at it. There are ways in which youcan have someone literally just do amanuscript review. You can work with somebody,you know, relatively low cost, who can help youformat, if you like that story and give you ways in which you cantake it forward. And there are lotsof different methods and approaches, but you cannotedit a blank page. It's a fundamental principle.Get it down and write it. When you've got somethingwritten, really think about who it is you're writing. For whensomeone picks up your book, what experience do you want them to takeaway? Do you want them to feel entertained? Do you want themto feel enlightened? Do you want them to feelangry about a certain situation, but then empowered todo something about changing their life in that respect?So really think about who the audience is. You can do a lot of this
Tracy Stewartguest
stuff yourself. You can, you can't complete the whole thing, but you canbuild a lot of this. And each time, each, each time you go back toyour manuscript, you can refine it, you can change the focus, you can add insomething, take something out, and then you'll get to the stage where you feelthat you physically can't do any more with the piece of work that you'vegot in front of you. And at that point you do needin some shape or form a professional view of whether or notit's something that is workable as a, as a commercial projector even if you want to get it self published comes backto the fact that you, you have to respect the end user, you have torespect the reader. And so you need to then look atgetting editing done, getting a decent cover design, and thereare various ways in which you can do that, but fundamentally, getit out your head, get it out of your head and then look at itobjectively and see where it can take you. And very often where youthink your book is going to take you isn't at all where you endup, you know, you, because it, having all of that actuallyin front of you instead of having it all just, you know, randomly whizzingaround your head means that you see it in a different lightand you can see that a book that you thought might be, youknow, a memoir actually turns into something that is much morecollaborative with the reader and so may become more of a workbook or aself help book rather than a straight memoir. Or, you know, you may look atit and think, you know, I don't think I really want to tell thisstory as me, I'd like to tell the story through acharacter because that gives you that one degree of separation,if you like, between the experience. And you know, often these are veryuncomfortable experiences. They're painful for people towork on and to look at. So I think, you know,first get it out there. Second, think about what you actuallywant the book to achieve and then think about how you canturn all of those ideas into something thatmeets those two objectives.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
I read my late grandfather's memoirs, which he wrotegoing back 20 or 30 years now and he was reallyproud of it. But as a reader, it was justhistorical dates that had no context or reference. It washim dumping his life onto a bit of, onto, well, twoinches of paper probably in the end, you know, it's 80 odd years of life.So you're so right. You know what matters to me? My story matters to meand for me. But if, if I want my story to resonate with you,I have to tell it so that it's, you know, what's in it for me?Why should I? Why do I care? So if it's just aboutme, my ego, it's not going to land with you, is it?
Tracy Stewartguest
No. And it's actually one of the most difficult things as a writerto realise that the book you're writing isn't about you at all. In that sense,it is always going to be about the end reader because if it is aboutjust you, then you're going to have that experience that you have with your greatgrandfather's memoir. There's no context to it, there's no, how doesthis help me move forward in life? Or how does this help me understandsomething I didn't know? There has to be an exchange. As a writer, we write,we pour our heart and souls into the books, but as a reader, you're payingmoney for a book and you'reinvesting time in reading that book. So there has to be a fair exchangebetween the writer and the reader.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
So the brain chemicals, that reward thing in your brain'sdopamine or whatever it is, you got to get a pleasure, pleasure reaction fromit. It's going to change you in some way, hasn't it?
Tracy Stewartguest
It has. I'm sure we've all been there where, you know, we started a bookand, you know, even if somebody else has, somebody enjoyed it, it justdoesn't resonate with us, you know, and, you know, so we don'tfinish it and we feel disappointed by it in some way, shape or form.So, and that's often, you know, we talk about the fact that they may nothave really thought about what they wanted their readerto feel, but you still might touch some people becausewe all get touched in different ways by all of these stories.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
One thing you missed in your bit of advice here, Tracy, was call you,message you for help, advice and guidance. Howcan our listener here get hold of you to find out more?
Tracy Stewartguest
Well, they can go to my website, which iswww.freshlypress.com. they canlook me up on Instagram as Tracy Stewart, author. Andboth of those have the ability for people to connect with me through a messageand the details about the services that I offer. Um, and I do, I dooffer a gift call for people. Because I think one of the things that's importantis, is that people can have the opportunity to just exploresome of these ideas first. And often, you know, I'll talk with people andthen they'll go away and do something and then they'll come back later.But sometimes they just need that potential totheir idea through to, to say out loud, I've got this ideafor a book and it's hard to do that sometimes withfriends or family who don't understand the industry or don'tnecessarily understand what the type of degrees you're looking toachieve. So I always recommend just talk to a professional. There'slots of professionals who offer the opportunity to have that initialchat and just sometimes articulating the fact that youwant to write that book and get a little bit of direction can make allthe difference between stepping over that threshold of imposter syndromeand actually getting the words down on the page.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
And I would say you've been extremely helpful,insightful in the conversation we've had about my own creation. So,you know, and I would encourage anybody to reach out. You're verygenerous and very insightful, so it's been really helpful. So thank you,Tracy. Tracy's been an absolute blast. We've been chatting now for a few quite.Oh, way too long. But it's thoroughly enjoyable. But no,thank you so much for your time again. I'm sure if you're listening tothis, then people will get in contact with you as well, Tracy. So thank youso much.
Tracy Stewartguest
It's been a pleasure. Thanks for the opportunity.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
As we bring this conversation to a close, I want to expressmy deepest gratitude to you, our listener, for lendingyour ear and heart to the cause of inclusion.Today's discussion struck a chord. Consider subscribing toInclusion Bites and become part of our ever growing community,driving real change. Share this journey with friends, family andcolleagues. Let's amplify the voices that matter.Got thoughts, stories or a vision to share?I'm all ears.Reach out tojo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.ukand let's make your voice heard. Until next time, thisis Joanne Lockwood signing off with a promise to return withmore enriching narratives that challenge, inspire andunite us all. Here's to fostering a more inclusive world oneepisode at a time. Catch you on the next bite.
In this episode of The Inclusion Bites Podcast, Joanne Lockwood is joined by Tracy Stewart to explore the art and challenge of telling untold stories. Together they examine exclusion in the publishing industry, unpack the persistent barriers faced by underrepresented authors, and discuss the importance of bravely amplifying diverse voices. Joanne reflects on her own journey with writing and podcasting, while Tracy outlines why authentic narratives—particularly those from marginalised or disabled perspectives—are crucial for societal change. Their discussion ranges from the practical challenges of getting published to the invisible hurdles faced by those without financial privilege or traditional access.
Tracy is a book coach, editor, and the founder of Freshly Press, an organisation dedicated to supporting unheard voices and advancing inclusivity in publishing. Based in Normandy, France, she has spent the past decade guiding authors who have struggled to find a platform within mainstream publishing. Tracy’s approach is rooted in both craft and advocacy, ensuring writers from diverse backgrounds develop their confidence and storytelling skillset. Her expertise lies in recognising and nurturing authentic voices, supporting disabled writers, and offering pathways through the complicated world of editing, publishing, and self-publication.
The episode highlights pervasive issues in publishing, such as the lack of representation for disabled and neurodivergent writers, the commercial risk-averse nature of many publishers, and the financial realities that so often stifle emerging talent. Joanne and Tracy also consider the role of technology, including the opportunities and limitations posed by AI in the creative writing process. They reflect on the importance of soul in storytelling and the need for publishers to be more courageous in their selections, championing narratives that offer genuine insight and emotional connection.
A key takeaway from this episode is that authentic storytelling—particularly from underrepresented voices—enriches the literary landscape and fosters true societal belonging. Listeners are encouraged to seek out, support, and share the stories that challenge norms and create spaces where every experience matters. This conversation offers hope and practical strategies for anyone aspiring to share their story or advocate for change in the world of publishing.
The views and opinions expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Inclusion Bites, SEE Change Happen Ltd or Joanne Lockwood. This episode is shared for general interest and discussion; we accept no responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of any statements made.
